Pre-arrival Information
Level 1 Summer Project
Photography is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate
and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere... - John Szarkowski
Project Brief:
L1 Summer Project 2015: A Square Mile
Your first year of practical photography projects will involve responding to set assignments, located
in four disciplines of the medium (studio practice, analogue photography, multimedia and book/zine
publication). Within these assignments, you will have the latitude to begin the process of exploring
subjects that are important to you and/or the way you see your practice evolving. To start the
process we are setting you a short summer project:
1. Identify different aspects of ‘culture’ in a square mile of your primary location over the
summer. This excludes any holiday, festival or otherwise ill-considered tokenistic locations.
2. Define what the term ‘culture’ might mean to you and the area in which you find yourself –
engage with subjects that interest you (and research into them) but try to think more
broadly than just your immediate surroundings.
3. Select one as a subject to produce a series of 5-10 images to be presented as prints of for
projection in small tutor groups during induction week.
Consider the summer brief in relation to the following extract from Stephen Shore’s classic book The
Nature of Photographs;
‘There are four central ways in which the world in front of the camera is transformed into the
photograph: flatness, frame, time and focus…They are the means by which photographers express
their sense of the world, give structure to their perceptions and articulation to their meanings.’
Stephen Shore
This series should look to say something about your subject, although you are not limited to a
‘documentary’ style of image making, and consider two elements of Shore’s classification frame &
time.
Frame
‘A frame has edges; the world does not. The edges separate what is in the picture from what is not…
The objects, people, events, or forms that are in the forefront of a photographer’s attention when
making the fine framing decisions are the recipients of the frame’s emphasis.’
Choosing what to include and what to exclude, or whether the frame works actively (a highly
structured approach that uses the edges as lines to enclose other shapes within the image),
Stephen Shore
or passively (to suggest a wider perspective beyond the pictures boundary), you must consider your
use of the picture frame carefully in this project.
William Eggleston
Time
‘A photograph is static, but the world flows in time. As this flow is interrupted by the photograph, a
new meaning, a photographic meaning, is delineated. Two factors affect time in a photograph: the
duration of the exposure and the static nature of the print and film.’
Shore classifies duration of exposure into frozen time (e.g. 1/10 000th second), which generates a
new moment;
Larry Fink
extrusive time (e.g. 2 seconds), wherein movement of camera or subject creates a blur that signifies
activity – be very careful if you choose to articulate an idea using blur – it’s difficult to get right, an
entirely blurred image is unacceptable;
Linda Connor
and still time (e.g. 6 minutes), which involves no movement whatsoever.
Edward Weston
In broader terms, the time of day you choose to shoot can radically affect the nature of the
photographs you produce. Early in the morning you can de-populate an otherwise busy street.
Saturday afternoon in the park creates a particularly busy and active relationship between people
and landscape.
The static nature of the resulting image allows an obsessive concentration, which is how we will look
at your project here and therefore how you should think when making it.
The images may be made to fit into any of the following genres:
 Portrait
 Landscape
 Interiors
When you are discussing your work you should talk about these aspects but also why you have
adopted a particular photographic approach to your subject. Since we are asking you to produce a
series of images the other factor that you must consider here is the relationship of the images to one
another.
John Spinks
Here’s one of John’s 5000 images from the project he’s been working on in his hometown. It is a
carefully considered photograph both in terms of frame and time. How can you best describe your
own square mile?
Good Luck
Jim, Shawn, Liz, Amanda, Angus & Nick - The BA Photography Team
Before you arrive it would be a good idea to begin the process of familiarizing yourself with
some relevant texts, and below is a list that will introduce you to some useful preparatory
reading. We will be directing you toward a broad range of books, journals and online
research resources once you start, this list is intended to kick-start your creative
engagement.
Recommended Reading (alphabetical)
Stephen Bull Photography, Routledge, 2009.
Graham Clarke The Photograph, Oxford Paperbacks, 1997.
Anne-Celine Jaeger Image Makers Image Takers, Thames and Hudson, 2010.
Stephen Shore The Nature of Photographs: A Primer, Phaidon, 2nd edition,
2010 Susan Sontag On Photography, Penguin, 1979.
Mary Warner Marien, Photography: A Cultural History. Lawrence King
Liz Wells Photography: A Critical Introduction, 4th edition, Routledge, 2009.
Equipment
The Photography Department carries a wide range of technical resources and
equipment, therefore we suggest that students do not invest in expensive equipment
prior to joining the programme. We do recommend that all students back-up all of their
practical work to their own hard-drive. It is suggested that students should purchase a
robust portable hard drive with a minimum 500GB storage capacity. Many lecture and
seminar rooms operate a Windows PC platform, whilst our studios are predominantly
Apple Mac based, the technical instruction team will be happy to help with any
formatting issues.
Overseas Study Visit – Paris Photo 15 (11-15 Nov 2015)
Each year the Photography Department organises an optional overseas study visit that is
open to students from all three levels, this year we propose to visit Paris between the 11 th15th November to coincide with the Paris Photo 2015 festival. As well as the largest
European festival of photography, the visit will also take in a number of smaller
photography events (Offprint), as well as the range of independent galleries, museums and
other cultural activities. The cost of the visit is estimated at £270, which includes the cost of
travel and accommodation in a hostel close to the centre of the city – whilst many of the
exhibitions will be free to enter or offer reduced concessions (entry to Paris Photo 15 will
cost approximately €8 with concessions), subsistence costs are not covered. More details
will be available during the induction week, when interested parties will also be asked to
sign up to the visit and commit to a deposit of £50.